first of all, a million gratitudes to st. martins for sendi”Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Take something beautiful and vandalize it with skepticism?”

first of all, a million gratitudes to st. martins for sending me a copy of this book. it was on my radar as “looks like my kind of thing,” but i’ve been trying not to buy hardcovers, especially hardcovers by authors new to me, until wealth finds me, so when they offered this unto me, i was all a-squeal.

i knew i would like it, but i didn’t expect to like it this much.

it is in fact SO MUCH “my kind of thing” that i’m a little swoony. it’s magical realism, sure, but even more than that, it’s pure storytelling. which, no, thank you very much, is not what all authors do. in fact, very few have the knack for it, and this book has gone a long way towards filling the hole in my heart that appeared when donald harington died.

it’s clear, direct, clean prose that’s not trying to be post- or post-post- or meta-anything, that’s not compensating for a lack of direction with literary gimmicks, that’s not fecund with self-importance or message or meaning, that doesn’t need to use words like “fecund” to show off.

which is not to say that it’s simple or unambitious or anything like that - like i said, there aren’t many writers who can pull this off, because when you streamline and take away all the distractions to the reader, there’s less to hide behind. as any magician will tell you, it takes more skill to work clean but it’s a more impressive show. and make no mistake, this book is magical.

as far as the plot goes, it’s about the life of weylyn grey, an orphaned boy raised by wolves who has a number of unusual abilities best summarized as “affecting the natural world.” he can create or prevent weather, communicate with animals (including his pet horned pig, merlin ♥), restore or regrow plants, etc. there’s no explanation about why he has these abilities, for which i am grateful, and it’s more like his presence inspires these occurrences, through some heightened connection to nature, which connection made itself known from the book’s opening chapter, also known to me as that time i was hooked. from. page. one.

I have delivered over a thousand babies in my career, but one in particular stands out in my mind. Weylyn was by all outward appearances a healthy baby boy: eight pounds, two ounces, all the necessary parts accounted for, and a wail that could shatter good china. He fit perfectly in the crook of his mother's arm and watched her with one eye, carefully, as she was still a stranger to him. I would have forgotten all about this seemingly ordinary child if it hadn't been for the storm.

The moment Weylyn took his first bewildered gulp of fresh air, it began to snow. Not just a few flurries, but buckets of the stuff, tumbling through the sky and belly flopping on the ground outside the hospital room window. By the time the nurses had him cleaned and swaddled, there was a good six inches on the ground.

It was June 29.

The child turned one eye on me, then opened the other like a backward wink. His irises were molten pools of solder that had not yet set, and for a moment I thought I could see a fire behind them, keeping them liquid.

"He's a healthy baby boy," I told the mother, trying my best not to sound unnerved.

Weylyn's eyes closed peacefully, and the snow melted almost as quickly as it had fallen, leaving shimmering gray puddles on the sidewalk below.

that is how i like my writing to be; it’s fluid, vivid, lightly cadenced, it’s just meat falling off the bone. it’s hard to describe, but when it’s done right, i’m all thrills and flutters. and when it’s done right in a debut? well, i dunno - because it rarely happens. even harington’s first, Lightning Bug, wasn’t anywhere near him at his full powers, and to me, he’s the gold standard for this kind of magical american folkloristic writing.

unlike harington’s invented town of stay more, arkansas, where magic and oddness was woven into the existence of the town and people, here weylyn stands alone, the gooey magical center around which the rest of the world remains ordinary. and it is this normal world who gets to tell his story - the novel is narrated by the people weylyn meets along his travels, some who become a sort of scattered surrogate family, relating their experiences with him throughout several different periods in his life in the brief pauses before he moves on again.

it's just great. and if i don't cut myself off here, i will go on and on all day and no one needs more of me babbling. i think this one's a keeper. if you and me tend to have the same tastes, you should get on this one as soon as possible. if not, do it for merlin

The targets are just a bunch of heads at the end of the day, and inside each is a big juicy brain, about two pounds of which is water. The human body

The targets are just a bunch of heads at the end of the day, and inside each is a big juicy brain, about two pounds of which is water. The human body is mostly water, in fact, roughly two-thirds. We are literally trash bags full of liquid, waiting to pop. There are a hundred thousand miles of blood vessels, connected to a fist-sized muscle pushing five liters of blood around with enough force to squirt ten yards through the air should someone put a bullet through your neck.

Ah, yes. People fascinate me. I could kill them for hours.

i caught the tail end of an episode of America in Primetime this morning, which was focused on the way that the idea of the ‘hero’ has become more and more blurry throughout the history of television; the rise of antiheroes and situational morality and drama reflecting a violent reality and the catharsis of applauding a vigilante sensibility if the end result is just. or something like that - i didn’t catch all of it. but i did catch the david simon parts, first when he was discussing The Wire, and omar in particular - who never put his gun on no citizen, and then in his reaction to Dexter, which was respectful, but also firm - david simon is not on board with a show that celebrates violence to the extent it does, or glamorizes a serial killer into hero-status.

and all that is on my mind now as i sit down to finally review this book. because this is an unequivocally violent book, and while edison, the central character is indeed a killer - for hire, or strategically, for self-preservation, or occasionally recreationally, he’s never cast in a heroic light. or even an antiheroic light. it’s a really unusual angle to approach a character - it’s not about sympathizing with a sociopath, the way Dexter or You are designed and it’s never passed off as an essentially good person doing bad things for noble reasons, or because of trauma or abuse or affective shortcomings. fiegel knows how he wants readers to respond to edison, and he leaves no room for ambiguity. i have the pagehabit copy, annotated by the author, and one of the post-it notes reads:

This was one of the hardest scenes to write, but I really needed to show who Edison was.

(it’s on page 49, if you’re curious)

i had expectations going into this book that were slightly off - i thought it was about a man, a killer, who kidnapped a little girl and raised her up in his image, and they went off on a léon:the professional/natural born killers/take your daughter to killing spree adventures. and it’s sort of like that, but with many unusual details that make the relationship less…chummy. i’ve read two books this year, with criminal daddy/eager daughter relationships: She Rides Shotgun, and The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, but this one is the least likely to be made into a hallmark channel movie. unless hallmark drastically changes their stance on spree killing.

don’t get me wrong, i really enjoyed this book, but it plays rough and it never lets you become complacent with the character’s acts. it’s a lot like American Psycho that way, where you kind of get desensitized to the body count until ellis is all, NOW I BRING TINY MAMMALS INTO IT, and you’re shocked anew. there is nothing as graphic as that scene anywhere in this book, and edison is less irredeemable a character, but there are several moves i didn’t see coming, and i was like “damn, edison, wtf, dude?”

it’s not just edison’s story; it’s split between him and xtian, the girl he kidnaps at age 8, and the novel covers ten years of their exploits, but while her perspective is interesting, she gets a little harley quinn-flamboyant in her teens, and he’s a more subtle puzzle-box, which to me is more compelling and lasting.

i am very grateful to pagehabit for sending this my way, and i look forward to whatever this author has planned next.

this one might be the best one yet: this book (which i had been really wanting to read), a short story by brian evenson ♥, a cute tote bag, and a tiny magnifying glass for my old-ass eyes that manages to make the body's failings fun!! plus all the annotations & etc. i am AMPED!...more

last year, i carved out my own short story advent calendar as my project for december, and it was so much fun i decided toWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

last year, i carved out my own short story advent calendar as my project for december, and it was so much fun i decided to do it again this year! so, each day during the month of december, i will be reading a short story and doing the barest minimum of a review because ain't no one got time for that and i'm already so far behind in all the things. however, i will be posting story links in case anyone wants to read the stories themselves and show off how maybe someone could have time for that.

which in turn links to the whole monthlong project, in case you wanna do some free short story reading of your own! links to the stories in this year's advent-ure will be at the end of each review.

enjoy, and the happiest of decembers to you all!

DECEMBER 18

this review is for Don't Turn On the Lights by Cassandra Khaw

Stories are defined by a beginning, a middle, and an end. In more literary circles, people talk about denouements and layers, textures, the way a word can transcend to a synesthetic experience. But at the end of day, it all comes back down to those three things. A beginning, a middle, an end.

You’d be amazed as to how much detail gets lost in between, how a good storyteller can make you forget the bits that don’t make sense.

this story makes me love cassandra khaw even more than i already learned to this year. holy moly - this takes my second-favorite urban legend/horror story and twists it again and again, just for fun. and this is just the kind of reworking i like, where you're given a variant

and then another

and another.

hmmmm, what does that remind me of???

oh, yeah, that.

but this story, good as it is, is not like Clue in any way other than being like a choose-your-own-adventure that does the legwork for you and lets you decide which version you want to retell at your next haunted hayride.

If not to feel guilt is to be blameless, then she had approached perfect innocence in life and achieved it when death had stripped away what little c

If not to feel guilt is to be blameless, then she had approached perfect innocence in life and achieved it when death had stripped away what little capacity for remorse had ever adulterated her hungry soul. The resurrection that our Master’s Communion allows had left her all wolf, and a wolf is blameless no matter what her depredations, for human compassion is beyond her ken.

oh, to have been a fly on the wall during the author’s pitch for this book series:

“so, it’s like x-men in the wild west, only the x-men are a family ooh, to have been a fly on the wall during the author’s pitch for this book series:

“so, it’s like x-men in the wild west, only the x-men are a family of norwegian teenagers on the run in the american west in the late 1800s after some regrettably bloodbathy berserking back home and there’s only a few different kindsa powers you can have, so it won’t be like ‘shit, it’s book three and i'm out of ideas - meet jubilee and her sparkleworks’ or something.”

“huh. that’s certainly an unusual mashup.”

“oh, and there’s also a love story. and a heartwarming tale of orphaned siblings sticking together. and there’s a cross-country pursuit by like monster hunter types. and a dog.”

“a dog?”

“a really really great dog.”

“oh, god, does the dog die?”

“LALALAALALALAA i’m not telling!”

so, yeah - there’s a lot happening here, but i swear it all works. it shouldn’t work, but somehow, laybourne makes it into this awesome jigsaw puzzle, where the powers of the nytte have unexpectedly useful application in the inhospitable climes of the american west. i am a big fan of westerns and man v. nature survival stuff, and there was plenty on that front for me to chew on, with or without the magical safety nets, and while i am not into love stories, this one at least didn’t make me queasy.

the focus on a teengirl berserker is also pretty awesome. it’s not something i’ve read before, and i love both the mental image of her kicking butt and also the humanity of this particular character, as she wrestles with her “gift,” seeing only its downside.

i went into this book thinking it was a standalone, but i’m really excited to know that there’s more to come. i await them with great anticipation!

********************************************

review to come, but i'm so glad i won this one!

********************************************

Congratulations karen!

You are one of our Giveaways lucky winners! You will soon receive a free copy of Berserker (Berserker #1) in the mail. Please allow a few weeks for shipping.

wooooHOOOOOO!!!!

1) i love that my lowercase k was honored.2) i have entered a number of giveaways for this book and i am so glad that persistence pays off!

i may have been playing up my woe for sympathy or humor. but it was definitely woe-making to have antibiotics prevent me from enjoying the bounty of beer and wine.

overall, totally worth it. i mean, as long as i didn't infect everyone who was there. s'everyone okay?

*********************************************

a couple years back i read this author’s book Safe Inside the Violence, which i legit enjoyed even though 1) i still have a wobbly relationship with short stories and 2) it was one of those daisy-chain situations where an author-friend of his suggested it to me after i’d read his book, which had in turn been suggested to me by a different mutual author-friend and it seemed like i was crowd-surfing in a very small room. but occasionally, good things do come from being passed around a room fulla dudes: sometimes you get a son named greg, and sometimes you get to read some great books!

with one positive reading experience in his favor, when chris irvin offered me an arc of his new book, i was already predisposed towards reading it, but when i read the description, zero convincing was needed.

i would add to that list Each Day a Small Victory, which was itself called “wind in the willows meets pulp fiction,” and probably didn’t influence the writing of this book, but is another great novel about animals who talk like people but don’t feel bad about eating their neighbors.

this book has more humanity layered on top of its animal characters than that one - language is spoken, clothing is worn, and there’s a stronger sense of community, where creatures of all stripes shop at the same store, attend school together, and do feel a little bad about eating a neighbor. that’s not to say this is some richard scarry utopia where everything’s grand,

there are plenty of conflicts and resentments veining this world - a mutually-observed division between mammal and not-mammal, a disdain for the criminal class “vermin” who live in the rubbish heap on the wrong side of the river under the exiled raccoon maurice, and some pervasive species-based stereotyping, as one character needs to be reminded,

”Not everything a fox says is a lie.”

it’s just a great all-around story. it has strong characters (including sir george washington, the most badass toad of all time), and it inhabits its own brand-new genre i am calling literary crime fantasy, but there are also shades of mystery, medical thriller, and smalltown drama. the nod to Fargo is actually perfect, whether that means the movie or the show to you - it’s understated and even in tone, there’s an everymandog character who gets in over his head with some baddies, and then misunderstandings, coincidences and a series of ill-conceived secret-covering lies snowballs into consequences and regret. and some bodies, naturally. all it's missing is the musical score.

also, and i don’t know how to write this freely without all the spoiler ninnies screeching at me, but this is the second book this year that i have read culminating in a (view spoiler)[bearus ex machina (hide spoiler)] <— spoiler for this book (and linguistically inaccurate to boot), the other one being (view spoiler)[Borne(hide spoiler)] <— spoiler for another book that is only a spoiler if you have already clicked the first spoiler tag, haven’t read that book, or consider “something that happens in the book” to be a spoiler, instead of its more rational and precise usage.

in any event - this book is great. you should totally read it. my only regret is that the artwork isn’t in the arc, and i’m dying to see it. chris did send me a couple of samples in an email, and cal looks like a sadder version of mcgruff.

or this statue near rock center

but i can't wait to see all of it.

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a wonderful, horrible collection of stories spread out across time and place, stuck together with blood and other bodily fluids. they are linked in tha wonderful, horrible collection of stories spread out across time and place, stuck together with blood and other bodily fluids. they are linked in the broad view by the fact that they all depict circumstances contributing to “how the world is” at the start of the first book in hale’s trilogy, The Bones of the Earth, with references to characters or situations that fans will recognize (♥ mosquito!! ♥), but they are further linked within the collection with recurring characters and more intrinsically - by giving either endings or explanations to previous stories. i was scratching my head over the super-glue thing at the end of Black Occult Macabre Vol. 1 Issue 7* until The Black Hours kindly showed me the light, while black occult, etc explained what became of beatrice after her story ended.

in short: wonderful, gross, funny, but mostly gross.

in long:

The House of a Thousand Hearts

”Death tends to make most things more agreeable, so close your eyes if you’d like, because I’m going to kill you now. Then we’ll talk.”

this was my least favorite story in the collection, and i don’t know why. it certainly wasn’t poorly-written, but it took me a while to get into it - maybe i just wasn’t in the mood for a short story because of distract-o-mind. i read it twice, and i liked it more the second time, but it still got sixth place. which is fine - that just means i liked the stories more as i went forward into the collection. spooky house, family curse, monsters & murders; the chronological beginning of the Trauma.

That Which Walks Behind the Graves

”It will take years to wash the blood from the headstones.”

this story introduces herbert north to the mix; a character the perfect blend of affable, capable, and formidable. he is a monster hunter by trade, called to the english marsh-town of cairn to investigate some unseemly dismemberments. it’s like splatterfilm meets x-files meets nick cave murder ballad. really fun, really bloody.

The Easiest Job in the World

For now, for once, her character flaws would become strengths. Too stubborn to die, too irrational to wait. If she had to kill, she’d kill, and if she had to dig her way out, she’d dig her way out. Of all things, Beatrice was a scavenger, and if she had to fight for the last scraps of life, then she would.

this one is my very favorite story, featuring the angry, down-on-her-luck, admirably badass and lamentably-named beatrice bacchus. when she unexpectedly runs into her former professor (and subject of many lustful daydreams) and he offers her a job watching his kid, she takes him up on it, because babysitting is easy money, right?

pause for laughter.

but it’s a great story - reaaaalllllyyyyy gross and also occasionally funny:

The papers crumpled beneath her weight as she moved like a beast along the floor. Most of them could be disregarded and subsequently discarded, but there were a few she couldn’t part with. They were of a heavy paper, comprised of cruel fibers that cut the flesh subtly for sustenance. They were folded three times to give an air of professionalism and burned when held. They were relentless, seemingly endless; torn pages from the tome of the Leech God, written with the blood of its whore, Academia.

They were student loan statements.

because the best horror is relatable horror. but (hopefully) that’s the last part that is relatable to you. if you have experienced the things that happen later in this story, i give you my profoundest sympathies.

Black Occult Macabre Vol. 1 Issue 7

”I told you there was a doll missing.”

the return of herbert north! and the first “real” appearance of connor prendergast, creator of the true crime/horror fiction zine from which the story takes its name. banter, dog boner, carnivorous tree, bloodbath horrorhouse, and yes - a spooky doll.

Nights in White Satin

”If they wanted us dead, we’d be dead. No grand scheme, Herbert. Just monsters doing what monsters do, and people like us making sure they don’t do it as much as they’d like.”

more herbert north! and this time we get to meet his oft-mentioned but only briefly glimpsed partner seth, in the Case of the Horribly Underestimated Wife! fun fact - if you queue up the moody blues song of the same name to begin at the exact moment you begin this story… you will have a pleasant soundtrack to a pretty bloody story. and you’ll probably need to start it over again, because it’s not a very long song, flute solo aside.

The Black Hours

”This is nice,” she said, squeezing them closer to her, eyes wide and nothing but pupil. “All it took was for one little clock to make us a family again.”

at about a hundred pages, this is the longest story in the collection, and in many ways, the most upsetting. not because of the imagery, although - ew. (particularly for the fellas - remember, oral hygiene is very important. just make sure you do it right) but because the family dynamic, both before and after the arrival of a spoooooooky clock, is so toxic, and in a way that isn’t necessarily horror-toxic, just plausibly manipulative/neglectful/selfish. it’s horror that kind of makes you sad. it’s more like a metaphor for the ways in which families can destroy themselves with carelessness and resentment. but also a metaphor for the ways in which they can destroy themselves by listening to a haunted freaking clock. this story also features a stuffed bat named scram, whom i love. and a dusting of herbert north.

i am very excited for the final(?) book in the series!

* although a closer reader/someone not reading this on their commute, subject to the necessary reading-pauses brought on by subway stops, would not have missed chekhov's super glue.

***********************************************

note to self: do not play an "all gross adjective" version of scrabble with this author.

“Oh, you little prick.” I smile in the penumbra of the dusty, green light, all teeth and hate. “You will hurt terribly.”

and this - this is my reward f“Oh, you little prick.” I smile in the penumbra of the dusty, green light, all teeth and hate. “You will hurt terribly.”

and this - this is my reward for dutifully reading a free tor short each week. many of the shorties fall into that “good-not-great” category for me, which is partly down to length, as more words = better as far as i’m concerned, and also just down to personal taste - the freebies give me a risk-free chance to try out authors i might not read otherwise, and not every author is going to be my favorite ever.

for example, with this author, i had seen her books at the store, and been drawn to them by their very karen-targeting covers* with dollar bills clutched in my hands only to be just as forcefully propelled away by the promises of the lovecraftian horror within.

i do not like lovecraft nor anything related to lovecraft other than my hometown of rhode island.

and if i’d remembered her name when i came upon this one, who knows - maybe i wouldn’t have read it, but my dummy brain had my back this time, and this story is now in my “free tor short hall of fame,” along with Fabulous Beasts**, Red as Blood and White as Bone, and all of the bardugo ones.

everything about it is wonderful, from its “kids-are-gross-assholes” opening paragraph:

“You’re not supposed to say that,” the young prince whimpers, looking up from his dinner of sausages and truffle-infused mash, savaged and pearled with the bites he’d drooled out half-chewed. It’s hard to believe he’s eleven. There’s gravy everywhere; practically a gallon of flavorsome beef extract, seasoned with allspice and caramelized onions, a rub of thyme, a bay leaf cooked to gossamer. The new cook spent ages on it. I know. I was there.

to its “stepmothers get to say what needs to be said” situations:

“You’re uglier than my real mommy.”

“And you’re a piece of shit.”

all the way through to its high-five of an ending. it isn’t a pretty pink story of princesses and shaded forests, and those of you who can’t bear animal cruelty are maybe too gentle for it, but if you hang in there, i promise you it’ll be worth it, because every dog has its day, even dogs with shitty masters. besides, animal harm, while enraging, is one of the less-romanticized realities of the natural world, as the author reminds us while making a different, but equally true, point:

People are always so quick to coo over children. So innocent, they simper as they press the screaming babes to their breast. So helpless. So pure. They forget that wolves are innocent, too, that the wild dogs savaging the family kitten, itself once a thing inclined toward toying with broken-breasted mice, harbor no cruelty in their ribs.

his (awesome) debut novel, Bird Box, featured an ambiguous “something” that swept the globe; a presence that drove anyone who looked at it mad: homicidal, suicidal, utterly destroyed. it was wonderfully intense, as characters were threatened by a force they could neither name nor even visualize, spending their lives in a protective elective blindness; not-looking at what might or might not be right there on their periphery, lurking behind them, creeping up the stairs… all of which made for a delicious tension for the reader; the horror of the unseen and unknowable foe.

this one is about a mysterious sound emanating from a desert in africa, one so intense that it neutralizes weapons and causes immediate visceral responses in the human body: vomiting, immobility, pain, and, when too close to the source of the sound, delivers an impact that’ll break every bone in the body. however, instead of characters avoiding a mysterious destructive force, here we have people who are sent specifically to locate the sound.

philip tonka is a man who experienced all of the above trauma, and somehow lived through it. he has been in a coma for six months, and has just awakened in a secret military hospital in iowa, recovering from his injuries at a remarkable rate, and being grilled by officers and doctors about his experiences, memories of which are fragmented and confusing.

i should mention, since the synopsis does not, that this is a historical novel, taking place in 1957. otherwise, you may have the same bewildering moment of dislocation i had when philip mentions something that happened when he returned from world war II, leaving me wondering how old this damn character was, and how an elderly man could have survived the breaking of every bone in his body. but no - he is only thirty-one, although it's still pretty remarkable to survive these massive sound-inflicted injuries.

philip did indeed serve in WWII, but not in active combat - he was in the military band, where he made the friends with whom he would go on to form the successful detroit-based rock band the danes. and now, twelve years after their service, the four members of the danes are approached by military intelligence telling them to soldier up and head into the desert to investigate this sound, a mission that has already been attempted twice, unsuccessfully, with the reasoning that those with a musical background will be better-equipped to handle the specific challenges of acoustics and echoes that an auditory threat presents.

they patriotically accept, the offer made more tempting by the promise of $100,000 each.

from that point on, the narrative is a jumble of past and present, real and surreal, as two stories unfold: the band and their military escorts head into the desert and are unprepared for what they find, and the aftermath of philip’s broken mind and body trying to remember what went down from his hospital bed, while the sympathetic nurse ellen is the only friendly face in a barrage of interrogations and injections by sadistic doctors and military personnel.

there are a lot of questions: the military wants to know what happened, how to get to the sound, if it can be weaponized, and philip wants to know what happened to himself and what became of the other danes. the reader, of course, wants to know all of this and more. and while many answers will be given - some of which answers just lead to further questions, some of the details remain unclear.

i’m still unsure how i feel about this book. in Bird Box, there was much left ambiguous at the end, and there the lingering mystery-shiver was wholly satisfying. with this one, some of the answers that are given take too much of the mystery away while others led to too many unanswered follow-up questions of “but, why?” & etc.

the writing definitely kept me interested and turning those pages, especially once everything started chugging and i began to get the same kind of vibe i got from Dark Matter, but i never really got that AHA! moment that makes a twisty-structured book like this *work.*

additional minor quibbles: despite this book being almost entirely from philip’s perspective, he isn’t particularly well-defined. he's the dude who does the stuff and who has the stuff happen to him more than a character. also, the romance aspect is jammed in without a whole lot of narrative foreplay, so it doesn't feel like a natural progression of events.

but all that aside - the journey itself is a creepy good time, even if the payoff is a bit muddled. it’s thoughtful overall, and it’s an unusual situation, which goes a long way towards my own personal readerly enjoyment, and i’m always willing to concede “it's me, not you” when it comes to any confusion i might have with a book.

so - it's definitely worth a read, for everything that happens between the naively optimistic, "How much trouble can one sound be?" to the chilling warning of "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

shivers.

*with apologies to rigorous taxonomists

***********************************************so, for those of you who were asking - right now it's a solid 3-3.5. i need to do another pass before i cement that rating. not as much creepy fun (for me) as Bird Box, but definitely worth reading.

"why are you watching aeroplanes," shesays, in the form of a question with noquestion mark.

"It seemed interesting at the time, I don'tknow - I was bor"why are you watching aeroplanes," shesays, in the form of a question with noquestion mark.

"It seemed interesting at the time, I don'tknow - I was bored."

"yeah?"

"Yeah, I was bored, but it might - I think itmay get better, I don't know."

this is one of those 'three stars for me, probably more for you' ratings in which i acknowledge my own shortcomings, and how i am not equipped to appreciate a particular genre or style of writing, in this case … hmmm…. surrealist stream-of-consciousness? literary bizarro? poetry-inspired flash fiction? arthouse film trapped in prose? whatever the style pleases itself to be called, i am missing the particular brain-lobe required to process things that are highly stylized, and while i can identify the appeal and skill of works on the more experimental side of art, i frequently struggle with what i'm meant to be taking away from the experience. i'm a medium-dumb american: i don't need bang bang boobies to keep me invested in a book or film, but there's a certain, let's call it european sensibility (i.e. all those films greg made me watch until my furrowed brow and very vocal reactions closed that chapter on our friendship), that leave me cold. (there are some exceptions: Last Year at Marienbad, The Mirror, Fanny and Alexander, but lord knows why i love those and barf all over Mouchette. feel free to speculate wildly - i'd like to know myself)

and while this isn't european; the author is from west africa and the names in the book are all japanese, although the action is a bit of a globe-hop, there's that elevation of style and symbol over narrative that makes my brain a little fizzy.

it's just under a hundred pages, many of which are only half-filled with text, and it's image-heavy snippets in which the mission statement seems to be: Things disappear because there is nothing to hold them in place. it's not that i hated reading it, but it frustrates me as a reader to have the story be so close to my grasp, but maddeningly elusive.

He reads some things on theInternet and joins a cult.

The cult - they're somewhere in Canada.

He learns to speak English - basic words.

The cult leader, his name isJkxrrtyfjjvvxzdrxrgkwnkkppfft.

Jkxrrtyfjjvvxzdrxrgkwnkkppfft isbald and likes to talk a lot aboutwhat happens after things die.

Jkxrrtyfjjvvxzdrxrgkwnkkppfft sayswords like spirit and flower and sisterand animal and incarnate and saviour.

he never really gets whatJkxrrtyfjjvvxzdrxrgkwnkkppfftis talking about, really, butappreciates what he is going for.

i can relate.

it's intriguing, but not, ultimately, illuminating, and i wish my brain was better at appreciating things like this, because i know there are all sorts of folks out there for whom this will be an easy five-star read, and i wanna be one of the cool kids, but my brain just won't let me.

They're watching Kanley Stubrickand He's asking her what shethinks of American culture.

right from the opening poem, it is clear that this is a more subdued and melancholy collection than expected from the lovably goofy stuart ross who thright from the opening poem, it is clear that this is a more subdued and melancholy collection than expected from the lovably goofy stuart ross who throws around the word “boner” and makes adorably lo-tech book trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV5Cr....

POMPANO

And my mother is on the balconyand my father is making cheese sandwichesand my mother is writing a letterthat my father will discovertwo months later in their bedroomin Toronto, the morningwe’re to bury her.

she writes thatshe is on the balconyand he is making cheese sandwichesand she says she feels treasuredand if ever there are grandkidstell them she’d’ve loved them

and in five years my brotherdies in my sobbing father’s armsand my father one year afterand I cannot find the lettermy mother wrote in Pompanobut I remember the word treasuredit’s how she felt, she said

and palm trees sway in the hot breezeand butterflies called daggerwings drift pastand sand skinks swim through millions of grains of sandand I - I am a pompanoI am this fork-tailed fishI am this fish and I searchfor that letter in my mother’s handbeyond the Atlantic coast

i mean, phoar.

it’s definitely a meditative collection, heavy on the preoccupation with nostalgia and happier memories during experiences of illness and death, but it’s not morbid or gloomy, just … mature. which is the opposite of a bad thing, and it just goes to show that stu’s got range and an expressive depth of emotional accessibility that is truly lovely.

there is some beautiful imagery here:

His veins are made of thread.

and some intriguing phrasings:

When I opened my eyes.,everyone becamevery emotionalall at once.

and it’s not entirely without humor - the poem titled HELLO, I’M A POEM ABOUT JOHNNY CASH starts out funny, although it does not end on a laughing note.

there are many shout-outs to other poets, and some riffs on their work, including one of my own favorite poets in the poem titled:

POEM BEGINNING WITH A LINE FROM MATTHEA HARVEY

can you guess who the poet i like is??? hmmmm???

it's a very striking collection, and i highly recommend it to you folks who like real poetry where real thoughts and feelings are articulated in a thoughtful and precise way intended to elicit a reaction of recognition or strike an emotional chord in a reader and notteen angstin garbage wordswritten like thison tumblr.

this book is a whole lot of page-turning fun. the synopsis reminded me of Before We Met, another british psychological/domestic suspeNOW AVAILABLE!!!!

this book is a whole lot of page-turning fun. the synopsis reminded me of Before We Met, another british psychological/domestic suspense novel in which a woman's husband fails to return from a business trip, and the details of his dark past that she discovers as she desperately tries to track him down.

this one is much more complicated and twisty, and it's ultimately more satisfying for the reader, even though there were some bits i didn't love.

it's about a woman named hannah who returns to liverpool from a business trip in oxford to find that matt, her live-in boyfriend of four years, has suddenly moved out of their house, taking all his stuff with him, down to the ketchup in the fridge, as well as everything they'd bought as a couple in the paroxysms of nesting, and in their place he has replaced that stuff with what had been there before he moved in - hannah's old tv, stereo, and coffee table brought out from storage, erasing the last four years of décor. not only that, matt has removed himself from every social media site, and deleted all texts, photos, and voice messages from hannah's phone and computer, as though he never existed.

hannah is stunned and humiliated. she had no idea that matt was unhappy in their relationship, and finds it unspeakably cruel that he would leave her so abruptly, without answers, never to know what happened to him, and she tries to pinpoint where it all went wrong:

When we went for an Indian meal the week before he left, did he know he'd never return to that restaurant? When he lay in bed beside me that last night, was he relieved he'd soon be gone? When he felt me kiss his cheek the morning he left, what was he thinking?

That was the moment I died for him, wasn't it? One last kiss and I was gone. I just hadn't known it.

the lack of closure is maddening to hannah, as well as matt's complete erasure of himself.

I could understand him removing everything that belonged to him, but why take my memories, too? All my photos of him had gone, all my texts. Not one email remained. There wasn't a T-shirt of his I could sleep in, there wasn't even a mug I could hold. How long would it be before I couldn't picture his face or remember what he'd said to me?

maddening is the operative word, and hannah quickly becomes obsessed; devoting all her time and energy to finding matt and an explanation, at the expense of her career, her friendships, and her hygiene. and it's such a drastic descent - she goes from a high-powered and ambitious senior manager at an accounting firm on the verge of being promoted to director to … a mess. and with every decision she makes that jeopardizes her life, you're yelling "NOOOOOOO" at the book, but you're kind of ghoulishly fascinated to see what will happen next, especially once the spooky stuff starts happening.

now, the ending. or rather, the reveal. there's nothing wrong with it at all - it's perfectly supported by the text, and i'd even considered it as a possibility while i was reading. but it's the part after the reveal i felt was a bit of a drag.

this section is going to be both spoilery and full of "things i wish had been handled differently," both of which you should avoid until you've read the book yourself.

(view spoiler)[again, i'm fine with the twist, but the scene with hannah and james where everything gets aired is sooo exposition-heavy. it just drags on and on, and hannah is so strangely docile and removed from the discussion. it isn't satisfying that she remembers nothing about her violent episodes with either matt or james until she is confronted - that kind of psychological compartmentalization makes it seem more like she suffers from mpd than bouts of furious rage. i assume it is meant to make her more sympathetic as a character, but it seems inauthentic and wishy-washy. i would rather she owned her antihero status, and demonstrated that she knew exactly what she was doing the whole way through than being contrite about her behavior. and she maintains this attitude until the wink of that last line, which was a welcome pop of an ending, but still makes her a victim to her compulsions rather than a full-blown villainess, which would have been a stronger note to end upon, sez me.

and while we are here in the secret spoiler-zone, hannah's decline into obsessed crazyland seemed more constructed for dramatic effect than it was realistic. don't get me wrong - her situation was one that would have driven even the most stable person to distraction, but there's gotta be a point when all that former ambition rears up and puts the unhealthy obsession on the back burner for a week or so, just to get that promotion so close at hand. once you're top dog, you can slack a little and let the underlings work hard while you skiptrace your lover, yeah? (hide spoiler)]

on a personal note - i am not a lady who draws a bath and relaxes with a glass of wine and a book, but i had been reading a bunch of books in a row where women did just that, and i was feeling like less of a woman for that not being a part of my "me-time," so i gave it a go. and although i lack the range of experience to be so confident with this assertion, i don't care: this book is a perfect wine-and-bath selection. so i encourage you: bathe, read, imbibe, enjoy.

********************************************four stars for the anticipation, three stars for resolution...

i don't think it will be useful for me to review this book by focusing on its actual contents, because even if you'veEarn your place. Earn your myth.

i don't think it will be useful for me to review this book by focusing on its actual contents, because even if you've read the first book in the trilogy, The Bones of the Earth, it would be confusing as balls. if you feel like reading my review of the first book, it is here, and you can laugh at how hopelessly confused i am by the fantasy genre in general; with its tendency towards unfamiliar names and tropes, and how this book specifically confused me.

because this world is so emphatically its own thing. and again - caveat that i don't read a lot of fantasy, so maybe it is exactly like Dune or something, and i just don't know any better. it's not like the film version of dune, i can attest to that, although both do feature giant worms

for me, fantasy can be too much for my puny brain to keep track of: too much vocabulary, too many characters, where all names of persons/places/things are created for the world and i gotta keep track of what's what. for example, from the (truly helpful) glossary:

Flesh fiends: Subterranean creatures with a conflicted mythology. They wear the flesh and body parts of their victims. When a Corrupted and a Night Terror mate, there is a chance a flesh fiend will be born. They were last spotted in the sacrificial pit of Geharra, as well as near the island of Lacuna.

obviously that's awesome, but there's a lot to keep straight there for one pretty minor element.

and yet, although i was a little out of my element reading the first book, i really enjoyed it because it had great characters, and many weird and gross happenings. when i was approached by the author to give this, the middle book in the trilogy, a shot, the pot was tantalizingly sweetened:

There are some nasty birds in it. But more importantly, how do you feel about six foot tall, walking, talking, skin cloaked mosquitos?

i feel intrigued and excited, sir! even though this is TWICE AS LONG as the first part with so many more opportunities to confuse my head.

thankfully, he included a typewritten summary of the first book along with this, which was as memory-refreshing as it was hilarious, with his little interjections and reductions. great swathes of plot are streamlined as:

Vrana fucks their shit up and heads home.

and those aforementioned flesh fiends? in my summary, they are: creatures that wear skins and bones and are basically the worst.

which is also exactly right.

The Three Heretics, true to its name, is sectioned into three parts, each following a different character: edgar, atticus, and the holy child. while there are appearances by characters from the first book, they don't get much screentime, so this is less of a continuation of plot than additional branches on the plot-tree. this kind of wraps around The Bones of the Earth, as its action takes place before, during, and after the events of part one.

and there is a lot to absorb here, for sure: plots and counterplots, historical explanations revealed, vision quests, religious fervor, life and death and the in-between, strange bedfellows, prophecy, and those 'nasty birds' i had been warned about, which made their horrifying appearance on the very first page:

Their massive claws clamped down on the nearest branches and rocks. Out of their scaled breasts, mouths unraveled, extended, and started chomping at the air. From their riotous hunger, the branches and rocks began to snap and crack. The twenty-pound scavengers lifted off, back into the air, and rushed forward.

the atticus segment was easily my favorite. not only for the appearance of that giant mosquito, but for having the most badass plot, the best characters, and the most carnage. i could read miles of atticus. maybe in book three?

look, another book about CATS! about grizzled blue-collar cats, salt of the earth and backbone of the workin

maggie is unimpressed, but i enjoyed it.

look, another book about CATS! about grizzled blue-collar cats, salt of the earth and backbone of the working class, like matilda the ragdoll shown working hard at her post at the algonquin hotel:

i love going into stores that have their own house cats. shocking, i know, but true. and i love that someone has finally taken the initiative to document some of these shop cats, particularly since i know most of these places, and can visit these little cuties whenever i want! during business hours, of course. but i do NOT love that, of the 36 cats featured, there are 24 from manhattan, 11 from brooklyn and only ONE from queens! staten island and the bronx are boroughs used to being overlooked, but queens? we have many cute cats who live in stores! don’t neglect our pussies!

here’s the queens cat - max at pets on the run, a pet supply store in astoria:

howdy, neighbor!

that complaint aside, i have no others about this book. the photographs are excellent, and each cat (or cats, in cases where stores have multiple feline representatives) gets a little write-up about their personalities, origins, or responsibilities while on the job.

there are shoe store cats, pharmacy cats, flower shop cats, and some cats who are really living the dream, like jeffie the whiskey distillery cat, shown here clearly licking some fine whiskey outta his whiskers:

i would say go home cat, you’re drunk, but you’re already there

another drunkard is jack daniels bagley, punching his timecard over at wine haven.

and ric and rac, who live in a freaking ribbon store, which is the best job ever for a cat:

they are having way more fun than valentino the real estate cat, who has nothing to play with but this chair, although he’s making the most of it:

three of the featured kitties are bookstore cats, and lemme just say - if you open a bookstore, you really must have a cat or two.

tiny at community bookstore

hampton at corner bookstore

and harriett at shakespeare & co

there’s also this little cutie named molly:

who i ran into while on an adventure not too long ago, but i didn’t want to bother her with picture-snapping since all new yorkers know you wanna give celebrities a little breathing room. plus, this little girl’s been through a lot in her life without me documenting her private time:

other adorable mentions are keetah, who presides over the vinyl at bleecker street records, and is probably an awesome dj after hours

and who totally looks like he belongs in the band from the aristocats:

also bud; a sweet little girl-cat who sheds it up at chenille cleaners, being so adorable that a customer offered her ‘owner’ $2,500, because that’s a totally reasonable sum to pay for a cat, but no sale.

she reputedly has “the softest fur,” but i know my maggie’ll win that prize every time.

this little guy is my favorite - 10-year-old sammy, who works security, employee-soothing, and keyboard-stomping in the tiny offices of mph, which provides messenger and courier services.

i love his crazy-ass whiskers and little red beard-area.

lionel maintains the bubble wrap at the red caboose hobby shop, which is a very important job, indeed

and the there’s chloe

who is SEVENTEEN and looks damn good for her age, despite being yowly and deaf and living on a desk. if i ever end up in an office job again, this is how i shall decorate:

and i will have my own personal assistant to help me type. perhaps i will even learn how to use capital letters under a kitty’s scrutiny.

i also love spooky, who lives in a bike shop in park slope, although i fear for his tail. beware, little one!

i’m also in love with kitty, even though living in a pilates studio has given her many white hairs

look at those eyes

although - again - i gotta go with maggie FTW

one more for the road! this is charlie, who lives at smoke scene, which is a smoke and vape shop:

make no mistake, charlie totally judges you when you vape.

so there you go - shop cats! being cute so you'll buy more stuff. like this book....more

man, it has been way too long since i have read monsterporn. this book reminded me how much fun it is to roll around in the bizarre and filthy world o

man, it has been way too long since i have read monsterporn. this book reminded me how much fun it is to roll around in the bizarre and filthy world of monsterotica, so a huge thank-you to Sh3lly the Dorky DNFer ✨ Bring on the Weird ✨ and her band of machalo pervos for letting me revisit this extraordinary brand of joy once more.

this is written by one of my favorite monster-smut authors. i think this is my 6th or 7th fannie tucker story, and she always delivers the freaky goods. any hack can write vampire porn or even ogre porn, but it tales a true master to write grocery porn.

if you're wondering what grocery porn is, please, take my hand.

ashley dubois is just a regular woman married to a successful lawyer. she lives in new orleans in a gorgeous condo, embracing the pampered lifestyle of a trophy housewife - unencumbered by a career or children and free to spend her time making elaborate meals for her breadwinner-husband, whose job provides her with all the finer things in life, but leaves her alone too frequently, a little restless and unravished.

tonight is their anniversary, and ashley is planning to make blake's favorite meal, so she takes a trip to the local piggly wiggly and buys nine bags of groceries. on the way back to her car, sweating in the heat and distracted by an incoming text from dear hubby (who seems to have forgotten their anniversary) informing her he will once again be working late, she bumps into an old woman with her cart. she is mortified, and tries to offer assistance, but is quickly repelled by the stench of the woman, and her disheveled appearance. the woman demands some of ashley's groceries, but ashley refuses, and scurries off as the woman crows after her:

“You want them groceries? That’s jes’ fine, girl. You gonna get them groceries!”

ashley goes home to nurse her disappointment and unease with some wine. she's enjoying the view from her second-story balcony when she hears a noise in the kitchen behind her. startled, she rushes back inside to find her grocery bags tipped over, canned goods scattered, most of the food either missing or tampered with: Creamy white droplets dribbled from an empty carton of yogurt.

she freaks out at the thought of an intruder in her house, despite the deadbolted door, grabs a butcher knife from the kitchen and runs to her bedroom, where blake's gun is kept. when she is suitably armed, she turns to see the shape of the intruder in the doorway, and points the gun at him, before realizing this is no ordinary intruder.

It was… the groceries

you see, all the missing food has fashioned itself into a six-foot-tall, man-shaped creature with a chest of ground beef, eggplant biceps, and most importantly - a big old cucumber cock.

that would be scary enough, but for me, this is the true horror. from its iceberg lettuce-head,it gazed at her with black olive eyes that somehow conveyed a disturbing intelligence.

yuk, olives. don't look at me, olives. you are gross.

naturally, ashley is confused by this spectacle and makes her inquiries of the creature, asking "What are you?"

turns out, this grocery-man is none other than a manifestation of zaka - haitian demigod of fertility and the harvest, and these are the kinds of consequences you face in voodoo-riddled new orleans when you bump into an old lady and then refuse to give her any tasty compensation.

but what does this creature want with her?

something about fertile soil and seeds… some light gardening perhaps? like in tucker's other story Garden Gnome Gangbang

or - oh, wait, what is he doing with those baby carrot-fingers?? oh no!! that ain't right!

He brought his fingers up, and she saw her own glistening juices on the orange carrot knuckles as his ham-tongue flickered out to taste them.

nothing more erotic than a ham-tongue.

but ashley is powerless to resist, and frankly, she's pretty turned on by the whole thing, ham tongue and all. and suddenly she's kneeling in front of this grocery-monster, enjoying a cucumber in an unanticipated manner.

To think I was going to put this in a salad.

zaka is pleased with these ministrations.

“Suckle my fruits, woman,” Zaka commanded. “Taste me.”

now, here it must be noted that the testicles of this creature were made of nectarines in her first description, but have now become plums. which she suckles accordingly, although perhaps not skillfully, as she describes suckling the smooth, tight skin until she tasted the sweet juices.

too hard, ashley! you're not siphoning gas here!

but zaka doesn't shriek in pain, so i guess demigods like it rough.

and ashley's ready for more:

At that moment, she didn’t care if his cock was a cucumber or a zucchini or a fucking watermelon, she wanted it inside her.

i understand how sometimes the heat of the moment overtakes a lady and those endorphins roaring through a body can make someone feel invincible, but come on, ashley - a watermelon is not a suitable sexual partner. for a woman, anyway. it's fine for a man, as cormac mccarthy has shown us, but for you, not so much.

it's one of those things you think will be sexy at the time, but it's really really not.

although ashley does play rough, as evidenced in her forceful plum-suction and in this additional scene of furious produce-lovemaking:

Her back arched as she clenched his butt in her fingers, her nails digging into the cantaloupe’s rough skin until sticky juice dribbled out.

jeez, ashley, control yourself!

but she's in a carnal tizzy, uttering the bedroom commands of one too lust-blind to see the humor in her utterances:

and the groceries are indeed given. in a variety of ways, and positions, just as that crone in the parking lot had predicted:

“You want them groceries? That’s jes’ fine, girl. You gonna get them groceries!”

and it's all fine and dandy until this one part. now, i have read a lot of monsterporn and NEVER once have i said "ew" out loud. until now:

Inside her, Zaka’s cucumber cock swelled like a ripe seedpod ready to burst, and she felt something erupt from its tip in thick, warm gouts. A vague image played across her mind: an empty yogurt container lying on its side in the kitchen. Now she knew where the yogurt had gone.

oh, ew. fucking ew. that is a bridge too far. no dairy in the lady garden, please.

but i will allow one pun, even though it's something of a metaphor-salad. (and yes, i see what i did there)

The thick, hard vegetable inside her pulsated as he emptied the fruit of his loins into her womb.

vegetables shooting out fruits?? what a cuntry!

it ends with an unexpected twist, giving some insight into blake and the weird things that turn him on, which can be interpreted as either the aftermath of a tantrum or a woman's complete psychotic break.

whatever the case, i shudder to think about what it's like to experience a grocery monster's sloppy seconds.

“Shut up, Ashley Dubois. I need to make love to you.”

i sure hope he likes yogurt.

and am i the only one trying to figure out what blake's favorite meal is? because these are all the items mentioned in the story:

i love the cover of this book. it's not staggeringly original or anything, but that's why i li"Like I said, people scared. Doesn't matter what about."

i love the cover of this book. it's not staggeringly original or anything, but that's why i like it - it looks like 80% of the covers on my grit lit shelf, for example, so it makes me think i know what to expect:

and the description is so vague:

The small, isolated town of Mammoth View is hit with terrifying news on a summer morning: a mysterious, large-scale attack is unfolding in the surrounding forest. It’s not clear what happened, but it’s bad. And it’s not over. As residents flee in panic, Police Chief Hicks and his deputy set off into the woods to investigate.

The attack seems like the perfect coincidence for Billy Lane. Looking for the biggest score of his career, he targets the local bank. The robbery does not go well—and the aftermath is even worse, leading the robbers to a nearby running camp for teen girls.

Over the next twenty-four hours, chaos descends on Mammoth View as Billy, the police officers, and a courageous teen athlete at the camp face down murderous strangers and ghosts from their pasts—all leading back to what really happened outside of town.

i wasn't sure if this was going to be grit lit or some sort of supernatural/rampant animal attack/apocalyptic weather disaster storyline.

turns out, it's none of those things. and it's not at all bad, but it's like when you see a mouthwatering picture of steak and french fries in your food network magazine:

and then it turns out to be an ice cream cake shaped like steak, and 'french fries' made out of pound cake, and you like ice cream and pound cake just fine, but your appetite was prepared for steak and french fries and now your tummy feels a little unsettled.

the beginning of this was great; i was getting a very strong Niceville vibe from it, because it is essentially the same exact setup: small town, bank robbery gone wrong, large cast of characters whose storylines contribute to an overarching narrative, atmosphere thick with tension and foreboding as the reader is dropped into something they don't understand but are digging their journey to the slow, spooky reveal.

unfortunately, this book is one long held breath. it's partially my fault for noting the similarities between this and Niceville and expecting the story to develop along a similar path, but reading this was a frustratingly long wait for explanations while the reader is shuttled back and forth between several different characters' backstories and present-day experiences, wondering when they will converge or when the real threat will manifest.

the writing is good; it's essentially a series of character studies that eventually provide satisfying closure to the events of the day, but i kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and become killer bats or earthquake-woken ancient evils, or a portal to doooom.

do not wait for these, estragon.

it's a smalltown crime story in which the most supernatural element is the ripple effects of coincidence and misinformation. the problem is that it wants you to think it might go supernatural at any moment, because it keeps dropping all these very ominous pronouncements that activate your spooky-detectors.

Lloyd's eyes followed his boss's, landed on Jamison's contorted face. "Right," he said. "But, I mean…out there. In the world."

and by out there, in the world, we really mean the small california mountain town of mammoth view, which a reader who is still thinking her ice cream is a steak cannot be blamed for noting has some characteristics similar to those small towns in the work of stephen king, or wayward pines, perhaps.

With all its quaintness - the brick facades and curlicue store signs - Mammoth View didn't feel like a real place when there wasn't snow on the ground. It felt like a mistake, a town removed from its proper time.

and from another POV:

The town made Billy uncomfortable, too. It had nothing to do with the fact that he'd left a dead man in the bank down the street, though that didn't help. It just felt creepy. The town was what snobs called picturesque, and what he called fake. Even the grocery seemed more like a gingerbread house. He wouldn't be surprised if he peered behind the row of soda bottles in the refrigerated aisle and found elves back there stocking shelves and cackling.

add to that the ambiguity and the oddness of the events as they unspool - and as the reader is exposed to them, where no single character has all the information, so we learn bits and pieces from people who only have part of the story - they see blood on a stone but don't know how it got there, they see smoke in the distance and do not know its source. these bits and pieces, taken singly, are commonplace, or at least explainable, but are rendered uncanny by juxtaposition and insinuation, by the author's sustaining that ominous tone and withholding all the information until the very end.

parts of the whole, in no particular order:

the town is evacuated suddenly after reports of an invasion, there is a small earthquake, gunshots are heard, a bank robbery goes sideways, there are several explosions and a large fire, stores are looted, people are killed, others are abducted, phones are down, radio stations spotty, there are many unconfirmed reports of attacks of unspecified origin, there are mysterious, half-glimpsed animal shapes in the woods, general panic, roadblocks, aggressive drivers, rumors, a missing police officer, miscommunication, smalltown bullies taking advantage of the confusion to go buck wild, etc...

and that's plenty to shape a regular crime story around, but then he'll write scenes like this:

"I know you're all scared about what you're hearing on the radio," she said, her voice a little wobbly at first. "None of us is entirely sure what we heard. But this much we know for sure; you're safe here."

Tori glanced at Eileen, who had let her eyes drop to her shoes. Tori knew what Eileen was thinking. They weren't safe anywhere. They never had been.

that imply SO MUCH DRAMA, potentially of the spookyspooky kind, but there's no payoff, in that particular case. that scene sets up a reader's expectations for some big freaking reveal like, "they had never been safe because of the annual piranha invasions" or "because they live in shirley jackson's lottery town," but no. they are just ordinary girls, leading ordinary lives (although one girl is infinitely cooler than the other). i'm just not sure what that set-up (and others like it) are meant to do, other than red herringly mislead the reader, and there are better ways to do that.

it's not always that clunky - there's nothing spookier than a deserted small town, and this scene of an empty diner, meals abandoned, food congealing, plays both sides well:

He walked around the counter and pushed through the kitchen's swinging door. The grill had been turned off, but the food hadn't been put away. A mound of meat sat at the back of the grill, the bottom layer flattened out and stiff from overcooking. Uncracked eggs still patiently queued on the side table. There was a bowl of diced tomatoes. A block of cheese. Butter. Cooked fries sat in their baskets above the oil vat. The makings of a feast.

wheeeere did they gooooo?

i honestly don't know how i feel about this book. on the one hand, it's a well-told smalltown story with strong characters, an intricate plot, and it holds the reader's interest throughout.

on the other hand, it's this bewildering fermata whose tension is sustained far too long for the modest scale of its conflict, so looking back at the plot after knowing everything kind of diminishes it.

he's absolutely an author i would read again, but not when looking for my spooky fix.

******************************************

huh.

i honestly don't know how to describe what i just read. i'm sure i'll figure it out, but right now i'm struggling with the chasm between what i thought this book was going to be and what it actually was.

this year, there are TWO dinovember-related books to enjoy! there's What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night, which has bunches of photographs of those dinosaurs being mischievous from dinovembers past, and now there is this one - a children's book where there are some pictures of dino-naughtiness, but also an attempt at a narrative to go along with the pictures of the dinosaurs making messes with toys, knitting supplies, food, paint, and mousetraps.

i'm sure the story-part will delight and amuse children, since it is basically all about destruction rarrrrrrr, but i'm just in it for the pictures, and i wished there were more of them. this is why we have internet, karen! and i know, i know, but i'm just saying...

i would give the book 5 stars for concept and pictures and 3 stars for desultory story, which math turns into 4 stars overall.

but also 5 stars for this picture because it totally looks like one dinosaur peeing on another dinosaur which everyone knows is the HEIGHT of comedy

and which made me see this picture in a probably unintended way

i never claimed to be the adult in this relationship.

it was good to see my favorite dinovember-dino again.

good old yellysaurus. may you have many adventures.

but let's have a moment of meditative silence together for this: in the backmatter (because i am the kind of person who reads the backmatter in children's picture books), there was the following statement:

No dinosaurs were harmed in the making of this book, with the exception of Vincent the Dilophosaurus. He was treated with high-quality superglue and has since made a full recovery.

i'm pretty sure this is vincent:

my thoughts and prayers are with you, vincent, and i hope you guys all make it through this dinovember unscathed!

"The Corrupted living on Lacuna were entirely self-sufficient, but what they could not cultivate quickly enough was life. They kept coming to the main"The Corrupted living on Lacuna were entirely self-sufficient, but what they could not cultivate quickly enough was life. They kept coming to the mainland for offerings, sacrifices to be given up to their lord. Why is that? Why is it that humans always seem to think the best way to get on their god's good side is to rub his nose in the corpses of all his children they've killed?"

i fully confess that this book took me forever to read because i am too dumb for fantasy. this isn't fantasy-fantasy, it's dark fantasy/horror but it is wicked detailed, and that is where my troubles always occur. much as i love well thought-out worldbuilding, when i am confronted with like 50 different capital-letter concepts, it takes me about two seconds per word to pause and remember "okay, this thing is this and that thing is that" and paragraphs like this make my head spin (spoiler-tagged because it's a chunk of exposition that maybe you will want to come upon naturally in your reading) (view spoiler)["They did this to Geharra because the Holy Child had disappeared?" Vrana shook her head."They had to have other reasons."

"Perhaps." Faolan leaned towards Vrana. "But it seems to us the Red Worm was not part of the plan. With Mishra dead and Turov gone, an Exemplar was needed."

"We think that Blodworth was sent to Geharra to prove himself worthy of the role," Nuctea added. "The effects of the Crossbreed would be attributed to the Holy Child, which would restore the people of Penance's faith. It would have bought the Order favor and time." (hide spoiler)]

COME ON!

that's just a random paragraph from the book, but there are a lot of similar passages, full of the Corrupted and the Crossbreed and Caldera and Cathedra and i am just not equipped to handle so many unfamiliar concepts at once. it brings back memories of me in deli-type stores in eastern europe, confronted with exotic products, waving my board game money in the air and shouting; "what do these things even DOOOO?"

but despite how creaky my brain is when exposed to new meanings/contexts for familiar words, i have to say that the descriptions in this book are a-plus. not the descriptions around "what this character looks like" or "what color the trees are" because that is unimportant. i'm talking about the disgusting splattery carnage and twisted repulsive scenes that bleed all over this book. it is gore-tastic. i don't know what anne's talking about when she's all blasé about "pretty standard gross-out stuff" or what she's been reading (is this something i will encounter if i keep reading hawkeye, anne?), but dude - there's a TON of ick in here. heaving pits of ick. really fun and meticulously described ick. but it's not ALL icky - there's some other good description which is just hinting at the ick - the calm before the ick. (i'm going to keep typing "ick" until my spellcheck admits defeat)

One does not see the string of pearls among a heap of diamonds, and so Vrana was surprised when they veered into an iron-fenced yard and stopped before the steps of a beautiful church. Its front door was chipped, beaten in by overzealous parishioners too impatient to wait for heaven. From on high, its massive stained-glass windows scrutinized the city like drug-addled eyes. Around the foundation, holy inscriptions had been carved into the stonework, coupled with faded images of religious iconography entirely foreign to Vrana. It was from here and the black bowels of this basilica that the foul smell of lingering death originated.

i thought the story overall was really strong, even though i was confused by about eight different things. which is again likely down to my inability to absorb conceptual abstractions and not down to the writing. some of my confusion is around proportion, and how these animal skulls would fit on humanoid heads so uniformly. i'm unclear on how the black hour works, i don't understand why the blue worm was dealt with as it was since it seems like it was helping? i don't understand how a dropped necklace can have such ... dramatic consequences, and i'm unclear about the specific differences, biologically and ontologically, between the various humanoids. and crazy witch and skeleton-man, what's your deal?

but when i did understand it, i loved it. it's a good quest-novel, and it has strong characters. i love bjørn, the cinna to vrana's katniss, i loved vrana's underground archivist boyfriend, with whom she does NOT have hot sweaty intercourse before she goes on her journey, which is rare when girls are in fantasy novels. i mean later there is time for that, but i like the prioritizing in their first scene together. i also appreciate the nonchalant appearance of a homosexual relationship later on the book. in a future wasteland-scenario in which birth rates are dangerously low, usually that would be treated as a frowned-upon "luxury" because of the need for baby-making, but here it wasn't even an issue. this book doesn't bash you over the head with DO YOU SEE WHAT I AM DOING WITH SOCIAL COMMENTARY?? the way some fantasy-ish books can. there's stuff there, but it's politely whispered.

what else…? i love vrana's mom, i loved r'lyeh (except for that NAME, although i did like her explanation for her name) and i even loved blixa, despite the fact that he's a birrrrrrd.

there's a lot to like here, even though i frequently felt like i was dragging my brain through oatmeal. if your brain has had better fantasy-training than mine, by all means jump into this puppy.

i know a lot of reviewers (myself included) have been told "you're wrong!!" on here before because of things they've written, but i think what i'm aboi know a lot of reviewers (myself included) have been told "you're wrong!!" on here before because of things they've written, but i think what i'm about to do may be a goodreads first - to straight-up tell the BOOK "you're wrong!!"

silly book, you are not crime stories.

i mean, some of the stories are crime stories, and some hover around the periphery of crime and violence, but i think that the audience for this is much larger than the crime fiction audience, and a crime fiction audience may not respond to some of the stories in here if they are looking for their genre-fix. there are several stories with zero malfeasance other than small domestic betrayals or teenage bullying, one anomalous slipstream tale of crustacean weirdassery, and one that the hallmark channel could film as a holiday special, if they were feeling a little gloomy one year.

when i was doing my reread this morning to write this review, i was struck again by how very solid this collection is, and how many beautiful stories readers will miss out on if they're like, "crime fiction?? not for me!"

this book is much better than my ability to review it right now.

it's sort of the second cousin of grit lit - full of the small quiet sufferings of people under pressure from work, family, their pasts, people who are lonely or trapped, people who make difficult decisions that go against their personal codes under duress or for some greater good that never pans out, the disenfranchised working class, the smalltown resentments and long memories of new england, the general cruelty of life and regret, the suffocating weight of the mundane & etc. and then some really are crime stories with guns and FBI agents and murders and all of it. but with the exception of Bitter Work, which is a crime story's crime story, many of these are about the blurrier edges of crime - the helper monkeys to the true criminals, who are paid to clean up after, cover up, or look the other way after the crimes have been committed.

the writing is excellent, in both the descriptions and insights but also in the paths the stories take - the twists and soft ironies that blossom into unexpected tragedies or even less-expected happy endings.

i mean, this is such a little wisp of description, but it is doing so much work underneath its seeming simplicity:

Randy felt the squelch of his tennis shoes as he stepped around the slush-drowned sidewalk in front of Doyle's Tavern. The depression near the entrance flooded with the least bit of rain, and in the winter, as soon as the salt trucks made their first run. It had been that way for decades and always would be, giving the locals something to bitch about while Tom poured their first round.

love it.

and this - which will probably mean nothing out of context, but gave me happy shivers when i was reading it:

"You knew."

She sits down, slides over to me, brushes the dust from her palms. The words echo inside my head, sharpen, turning inward. You should have known.

and i know i'm not doing this book any justice because i am suck at writing reviews lately, but i really and truly liked this book, even if i am lousy at articulating why.

favorite stories:

Union Man

Lupe's Lemon Elixer

Vacation Package

Napoleon of the North End

******************************************************

review TK - i still get exhausted writing reviews for short story collections, even when i like them. and i liked this one, so i want to review it enthusiastically, but - exhaustion. a vicious cycle which i will soon overcome.

Union ManImaginary DrugsDigging DeepBringing in the DeadLupe's Lemon ElixerVacation PackageBeyond the SeaSafe Inside the ViolenceNapoleon of the North EndBlind SpotBitter WorkNor'easterThe Things We Leave Behind...more

But a prudent man sees when he’s beaten, doesn’t he. And finds the least painful way to lose.

if any of you have been neglecting to read these free torBut a prudent man sees when he’s beaten, doesn’t he. And finds the least painful way to lose.

if any of you have been neglecting to read these free tor shorts on the grounds of "i do not care for science fiction or fantasy," then never fear! this story has neither! what it DOES have is this disclaimer, which i have only seen on one other tor short so far (but i'm sure it is on many more):

Like some other stories published on Tor.com, “The Hell of It” contains scenes and situations some readers will find upsetting and/or repellent. [—The Editors]

now, i totally understand why disclaimers exist - to warn off the people who might be faint of heart or easily offended or whatever. but for me they operate as a clarion call. "upsetting and/or repellent"??

you have my attention.

and maybe i'm just too leather-tough, but after reading this story, i had no idea what "repellent" situations were being warned against. this is a sad story, no doubt. but all the sad/bad things that occur in this story are things that actually exist in the world in which we live: poverty, death, child prostitution, etc. so it just seems overly cautious to warn people away from situations that haven't been invented for dramatic effect, but that do exist and should be addressed in fiction.

this is the second tor short i have loved by this man, so i'm definitely going to keep my eyes out for more. the first one was about pain and beauty. this one is about desperation and sacrifice. all of those things are my things - all of that fortitude and perseverance through the hardest of times. all the pride and honesty and last ditch efforts that may or may not be successful. the scrape and pound of life and the struggle to remain upright.

“We’re down. And we’re going to be down for a while. But I want you to remember this: Any man willing to work, if he’ll let go his pride, can find something to lift or push or drag, and someone to place a cold iron plug in his hand for doing so. That’s a heavy net to haul, but you keep a stitch of honor for hauling it.”

it's a story about a father and a son, all that they have lost, and all that they still have left to lose. it's like The Road, but with simple poverty taking the place of the undefined apocalypse.

Malen got up, went around the table, and put his large, rough hands on the boy’s shoulders. He meant to offer some reassuring words. Fathers do that. They stand between childhood and the harsh ways of greedy men, whether those men wear uniforms or leathers with week-old meal-stains. Except that it was too late for reassurance. All this had already gotten inside his boy. There was nothing to be done about that. And Malen wouldn’t lie or try to refashion hard truths his son had learned too young.

memory and risk and offering - hope smacked down.i could just list words all night. but i'll stop.

another great sad story from this guy, and not a spaceship or dragon to be seen .

and i hear you, "wait, another literary crime thriller about moonshine and meth and a sorta backcountry mafia where murder is all in a day's work?? is there any juice left to wring out of this suddenly overexposed genre??"

yes! because location! where we are dealing with

"Some baller from up in Georgia. I didn't even know they had ballers in Georgia. Backwoods motherfucker."

and this is one hell of a baller. we're actually dealing with several generations of ballers comprising the burroughs family and their adopted family of likeminded individuals, all holed up in the mountains of north georgia, where they have transitioned from running a moonshine enterprise into its modern-day equivalent: meth. and guns. and a dislike of anyone who tries to step in and interfere with their business, whether it be competitors, the law, associates suddenly wanting a bigger cut of the action, or even family.

this debut opens with a fantastically taut and surprising chapter that sets the tone for the whole book, which then unfolds across time and through several storylines encompassing both the members of the burroughs clan and an atf agent intent on bringing them down.

clayton burroughs is the main focus - a man who left bull mountain and his kin behind to become sheriff in waymore valley, bringing what order he can to his community, but adhering to the philosophy that "what happens on bull mountain stays on bull mountain." that is, until agent holly comes sniffing around looking for some cooperation from clayton's brother hal in closing a case in which hal is tangentially involved. although clayton has been estranged from his brother, and the rest of the inhabitants on bull mountain, he takes the offer and the warning up the mountain to hal, who is… unimpressed.

the rest of the ebb and flow of the book supplies motive, backstory, revelations, and bucketfuls of blood - all the things people want out of their southern crime fiction in glorious violent technicolor. because trees aren't the only things that can be set on fire.

it's a dark and twisty debut, and the strength of the writing elevates this above "just another grit lit novel." it's definitely familiar territory for those of us who read widely in the genre, but it's terrifically paced and plotted, and while the argument can be made that it's a little too conveniently tidy in some of its concluding bits, it's still a wonderfully engrossing read and frequently surprising.

Correlation is not causation. Even when you know it's not causation, you still can't stop thinking about it.

you know what i think is strange?? that iCorrelation is not causation. Even when you know it's not causation, you still can't stop thinking about it.

you know what i think is strange?? that i liked this book. if you had asked me if the world needed another book told from the POV of an autistic character, i would have said "no. no we do not." i completely understand why it is tempting for a writer and appealing to a reader to produce/read books like this - it offers a perspective and a worldview that is outside the experience of many of us, and it's a novel lens through which to view the familiar world. or it would be novel if it hadn't already been done to death. by now it's just gimmicky and redundant.

freddy is a seventeen-year-old boy who has just had to change schools after being expelled for fighting. any kind of routine-upheaval is devastating for people with autism, and since freddy is still trying to process his mother's abrupt disappearance ten years ago, this is just one more confusing layer added to his existence as he struggles to interpret social cues in a life he shares with his overwhelmed, alcoholic father. he is forced to attend regular counseling sessions at his new school as he attempts to acclimate, and things really start to foment when he is reunited with saskia, a girl who is also on the spectrum, who'd been his best friend before she also disappeared from his life ten years earlier.

their reunion is complicated and unusual to an outsider. saskia no longer speaks, she only squeaks, and this, in addition to scrawling pink floyd lyrics to freddy, is how she communicates with him. but their relationship had always been singular from outward appearances:

Saskia has seen my bedroom. I have seen hers. Back when our parents still made us put on pyjamas before one of us had to leave, we would retreat to the bedroom and ignore each other like very good friends should do.

Within the slim definition of 'play' that applies to autistic children, Saskia Stiles and I played. We bounced around rooms, at Excalibur House, without bumping into each other. Most people thought we were ignoring each other, but if you asked me what I did for the day, I would have told you that I played with Saskia. She would have said the same.

When we played, I was happy. She let me do the things that I wanted to do, with no other demands. I let her do the things that she wanted to do, with no other demands. we were glad for each other's company. It was enough.

between saskia's reappearance and freddy's counseling sessions, the threads of his thoughts begin to stir as he remembers bits and pieces of the past, both with his mother and after her disappearance, which he struggles to process. the novel is made up of freddy's experiences at seventeen along with many revealing, nonlinear memories fading in and out in-between. it's a big-hearted coming-of-age story, a character study with a strong voice, and also a family mystery. and like the best of its kind, it's funny and sweet and sad and ultimately hopeful.

i really loved freddy, and while i did not love his father as a person, his frustration and helplessness and anger were very realistic as character traits. it's a touching story, but it isn't at all cutesy, and the ending genuinely surprised me.

tell me you don't love this kid:

I try not to smile. It's better for all concerned.

I smiled the day my father told me that my mother would not be coming home again. He, on the other hand, wasn't smiling. I heard him the night before, and deep into the morning, his banging around the kitchen, his watching television in the living room.

His eyes were all puffy and red, and I knew he needed to be comforted. I recalled relevant scenes in literature and concluded that a good way to comfort an unhappy person is to try to cheer them up. Relevant examples also included affirming the individual by overly praising them.

I smiled as broadly as I could.

"Well, that's fantastic," I said to my father, and did not break the smile. "You should be very proud."

Perhaps my smile was too wide - I can't tell.

I am, at the age of 17, a veteran of this war, this battle to communicate with the outside world before it communicates with me. I have lost many battles where I smiled when I shouldn't have smiled.

A neutral demeanour resonates with my character. It isn't hostile, so others aren't threatened. It isn't happy, so others aren't chatty. It's so perfect a display of no opinion, that few people think I have an opinion. As a result, few people ask for it.

When I don't offer an opinion, when I don't offer a response, when I don't display easily misinterpreted emotions, I don't get into trouble.

I used to think my solution to life was to understand how to talk to other people. In reality, the solution to my life was how to understand how to avoid talking to other people.

so, apparently this is the thing about squirrels: if you set up little dioramas in your yard, they will come over and be adorable among your landscapes and act like little fuzzy humans.

i encourage all of you all to follow ms. rose's example.

because this, while cute, is "just" a picture of a squirrel:

but this?? this wins.

and this book isn't "just" photos - there's a whole story here about what these little guys get up to when they're out and about, but i will leave that for you to discover.

you just sit back and enjoy the pictures.

but do notice this little detail - the books on the upper-right and lower-left are exactly the same, and in the same order. is this moon-landing sound stage tomfoolery?? please - shadow-experts, solve this mystery for me. because i want to believe.

okay, so the back of this book claims it is like The Abyss meets The Shining, and on the one hand, you might think to yourself "yeah, well it's a horrokay, so the back of this book claims it is like The Abyss meets The Shining, and on the one hand, you might think to yourself "yeah, well it's a horror book that takes place under the sea - pretty lazy comparison, that." but it's actually a perfect comparison, and one which goes beyond the obvious surface-similarities. this book is just classic horror writing. by which i mean classic MODERN horror writing, not that algernon blackwood stuff that relies too much on half-seen apparitions and insinuation. this one reminded me in all the right ways of it, with some shades of misery and also a little bit of the thing. it's a wonderfully self-contained horror story that uses psychological elements like claustrophobia, isolation, and paranoia in conjunction with its more supernatural elements in order to hit the reader from all possible angles simultaneously. and it is very effective.

apart from the flashbacks, it all takes place 8 miles below the ocean, where even without the paranormal creeping in, there are so many natural things that can go wrong. you know you're in a scary place when these terrifying-looking viperfish are the least of your worries:

if you read The Troop and you were all "ewww too violent!!" or "oh no, the animals!!" back away slowly from this one, because it's both more of the same and MORE of the same. it's not going to pull its punches just because you like puppies and mousies. i like those things, too, but it's not much of a horror novel if no one gets hurt, yeah? and this one will come to get you where you live. i mean, true - it takes place 8 miles beneath the ocean, which is probably not actually where you live, but it does that more insidiously-scary thing in its flashbacks that stephen king is so good at especially in it, which is to remind you of how fucking terrifying childhood was. of how the thing in the closet was completely real and you were so small and no one was on your side. this book will bring you back to that point where anything could happen in the dark.

the only disappointment i had with this book is that we didn't get more about the 'gets - the plague that inspires the whole undersea research situation in the first place. because that's what fascinated me from the beginning - the symptoms of the plague that had me rapid-fire self-diagnosing:

It causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left their keys…then the not-so-small things like how to drive, or the letters of the alphabet. Then their bodies forget how to function involuntarily…and there is no cure.

because i know i have that disease.

and i would be perfectly willing to read a companion-book to this one that focused on what was happening on the surface either before or during this book, so if that was ever up for debate, know that i would heartily approve.

this is a fine picture book to remind adults that death is as natural as living, and caneverybody knows

but in this book, it's just a little cuter

and

this is a fine picture book to remind adults that death is as natural as living, and can be as fun to think about! i mean, look at these endpapers - whe!

and it's not just funny, it is a book that cares deeply about you

well, are ya? are ya?? answer me!

and after bleaking us out about all the cute animals that will die, but then cheering us by reminding us how crowdy it would be if everything lived forever, there are fun games to play like "fill in your will!" and "decorate this tombstone with your name and death-date on it!"

although, it is nothing if not realistic, and suggests

which is a responsibility i am passing along to my dad, who is really glad i am getting to go away for the weekend, but not above trying to freak me out by sending me this:

thanks a lot, dad! enjoy filling out that death date! hope you don't live to regret your little ha-ha!!

who proved that once you go frank black, you do indeed go back. to black francis.

okay, eso frank black wrote a book...

not that one, you nerd!

this one

who proved that once you go frank black, you do indeed go back. to black francis.

okay, enough hilarity.

this book is something else. this is an illustrated book - not a graphic novel - based on a proposed soundtrack score for an as-yet-unwritten feature film about the very first narrative porn film in history, the good inn, of which only a few film frames survive. why does the film no longer exist? read the introduction. or better yet, read the book. because that's what it's about, silly.

it is illustrated by a cartoonist who did the art for Trompe le Monde and here is what some of the illustrations look like:

and

the book features recognizable historical figures like jacques tati and luis buñuel along with fictionalized amalgams of several different less-famous historical folk who combine to form the actors and other contributors to the good inn. with all the illustrations and the focus on the early days of cinema, it's kind of a more grown up version of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, more grown-up because boobies:

and carnage:

but it's also an explosive rollicking adventure alongside a more surreal metaphysical thread and a love story and maybe someone's head will explode and dalí will yell at a cock and then - many explosions.

it's a fun read and a beautiful book-as-object, and if you are the kind of person who watches porn for the story, this is your chance to see how it all began! nameless people intercoursing without context?? boring. soldier goes to an inn and meets the innkeeper's daughter and then they begin intercoursing?? yeah, that's more like it.

okay, i was really enjoying this the whole way through, but i was a bit let down by the ending.

it is a very self-conscious book, and very very funny.okay, i was really enjoying this the whole way through, but i was a bit let down by the ending.

it is a very self-conscious book, and very very funny. if you think omphaloskepsis is funny. and i happen to. it's a cheeky story that takes place in four b-cities: brooklyn, bloomington, berkeley, and bakersfield, full of egotistical young adult hipster types who are struggling with relationships and self-discovery, solipsism and drugs and the dilemmas of translation, all overshadowed by a mysterious countercultural protest group whose philosophies are vague at best; changing the entire fabric of ideaspace ftlog, but who rally around an enigmatic and charismatic leader named viv la revolution under whose influence they will leave their mark in a big way. i mean, apparently.

Bad Teeth: A Novel actually has a lot in common with Infinite Jest, both structurally and thematically. structurally it's an easy scan - the story is told through a variety of different viewpoints, all revolving around a central character who is mythological in stature and far-reaching in influence but only briefly revealed on paper. there are connections between all of the characters; some known, some removed by a degree of separation, and their stories slide over each other through the device of an omniscient narrator whose identity is not revealed until partway through the narrative, as he asserts his own voice through the intrusion of footnotes. also - acronyms. also-also, this text has been written after a catastrophic event that is alluded to throughout, and the book is chronicling events leading up to this climax, this conclusion, which never actually happens within the story itself. add this to the fact that IJ is mentioned once explicitly and that jigme drolma, the mysterious author whose work is whispered about through all of these stories, is known as the Tibetan David Foster Wallace and baby, you got a stew going.

thematically, the similarities occur in characters who are incredibly lonely intellectual and pseudo-intellectual types, anesthetizing themselves with drugs and alcohol in order to avoid the vulnerability of relationships while still yearning for human contact and meaning. they are self-conscious and self-reflective; those very stoned or very immature young adult types who spend their time thinking about shit that seems so revelatory and clever at the time, like comparing the feelings of different kinds of love to the highs of different drugs, but are really just smug antisocial excuses for not taking action, and stalling their way through life.

At this point in his life, Judas was one of those vague young men on the verge of no longer being young, now in his midthirties, whose sense of purpose in life had been too long dependent on early promise, and who was only just beginning to realize that this promise had been rescinded; he was still defining himself in terms of what he might become rather than in terms of what he was, but he was beginning to learn.

yeah, like that.

but the text continuously pokes fun at these characters for their self-indulgences:

He went away feeling sorry for himself: seeing himself as Candide and wondering why he had even bothered moving here. But the reader shouldn't feel too sorry for him, as he was ignoring all of the times in his life when he had been the one who had acted like a total dick to someone else. He tended to express his aggression more passively than Walter and his friends, of course, but at least they were open about who they were. Judas, on the other hand, pretended even to himself that he was sweet, romantic, and innocent when in fact he was just as competitive, lustful, and petty as any of them. Which is to say that he kind of deserved to have his finger broken.

which i think is fun.

and there are the same kind of dizzying monologues as in IJ:

"Yeah, well. It's just that you get this one little piece of clout and they treat you as if you're some sort of authority, and for a second you start to believe it, and so you end up coming across as all pontificatory, you know?…But then if you start worrying too much about that shit, it gets even worse. It becomes like this false modesty thing, where you're like, 'I have to pretend I'm not as great as everyone thinks I am, otherwise I'll seem like I'm full of myself.' But then that ends up being the real sign that you've bought into your own hype, when you feel like you have to hide it…You read my first story, so I know that you're going to look at my new one in relation to that. You have expectations about who I am and how I write. And I can't help that, I guess - I mean, there's nothing I can really do about it - but I can't let it bother me either. So yeah, you know, the new one is completely different from the first one. But then that's a choice, too. I mean, do i deliver a known quantity and position myself as a niche writer, just doing this one thing well, over and over; or do I risk alienating my established audience by trying something new? It's like, that question is always there, but it's a question that you can't let yourself worry about. Or it's a decision that you have to make without worrying about all of the repercussions, at least with regard to that particular question. I mean, you have to make the decision for entirely separate reasons.

which the leads into this "oh no you didn't" punchline

"If I actually have to summarize it in a single sentence, I guess I'll say that it's about Ludwig Wittgenstein lacking the words to express his love for a young Cambridge mathematician. But that makes it sound pretentious, you know, when for me - even though it's about a language philosopher - it's not really about language or philosophy; it's about the emotional core. I mean, to be totally honest, even though I obviously don't expect anyone to get this, for me it's about my twin brother, Isaac."

and the former english major undergrad in me stifles a snort of recognition. which is repeated every time the words "objective correlative" are used. which is *spoiler alert* a lot.

there are also a lot of jabs taken at interpretation - of books and films within the book, dreams, diary entries and unsent letters, student stories, all of which are very revealing and also a hoot. and some really funny parts about the woes of academia in the clash of wealthy-and-disgruntled parents vs. university faculty.

but there are also less funny passages about the inherent loneliness to the act of both reading and writing, and the chasm of communication which occurs between people who are too self-involved:

The conversation was awkward. They both had things to say to the other, but they had trouble with the diction. Caissa was halfway annoyed that she even had to deal with her own uncertain emotions when she would have preferred to put all of this energy into her book. Judas, meanwhile, was focused in wondering whether he would be able to engineer some other opportunity to sleep with her and thus cement what he hoped might become a real and meaningful relationship, though he couldn't think of anything that wouldn't come off as desperate. So, instead, they spoke mostly of other people…

or too woefully analytical:

Part of Adam suspected that his suspicion that he might be an alcoholic was just a way of trying to make himself seem more interesting: that telling Judas about it was a misguided attempt to sound mysterious and cool. But another part of him suspected that this skeptical analysis of the situation was just the alcoholism's way of trying to hide itself.

or too defeated:

…he found that his ambitions had diminished in other areas, as well. Where he'd once dreamt of finding his one great love, now his thoughts on that subject didn't reach beyond getting back to Brooklyn and having sex with Caissa again - or for Caissa to love him, and tell him that she loved him, even if they didn't end up together forever. And beyond all of this, he wasn't sure what any of his next goals should be - what he would have in his life immediately worth living for.

but okay, enough quoting, sheesh.

i really enjoyed this, and it was a four-star from the outset, but i found the ending to be very abrupt and jarring, which disappointed me into a half-star demotion. later today, i am going to reread/skim the book to see if i missed something that justifies this abruptness, but for now, i am going to say 3.5.

nope! i reread the whole thing, and i still feel a little blindsided by the whole ending-thing. however, and i know i said no more quotes, but i came across another passage i liked for its last-line ball-punch, so i leave you with:

But here it is, my big idea: the loss of a loved one is always pretty much the same. Or, that's not the realization, but it's sort of a corollary of the realization. But regardless of whether the reason you lose someone is because your love is unrequited, she leaves you for a neighborhood, or just because the person dies - and whether you're talking about a parent, a lover, or a friend - they're all sort of the same. The particulars allow for some shading of intensity, it's true, but the worst part is always the same. You feel as if you can't possibly get along without the person - and in a way you're right; the person you are at the moment that you think this is more or less defined by the attachment you have - but the hardpan truth of it is that time will make you into someone else, someone who can get along without that person, no matter how much you don't want it to. So the really traumatic thing is all nine instances - multiplying the three types of failure by the three types of relationships, though I don't mean to say that's the extent of the possibilities - isn't the loss of the other person; it's the loss of yourself. And it seems like the end of the world because it is - but only this world. The pain you feel - the pain that wakes you nauseated by your own gut-doubling sobs - it's the pain of birthing someone into another world. Someone other than you who couldn't exist without that love. So, you know, for what it's worth: happy birthday....more

i loved this series. i loved it like i have rarely loved a trilogy beforand now it is over.

let's take a moment of silence to reflect on this trilogy.

i loved this series. i loved it like i have rarely loved a trilogy before. and for those of you who are still all weirdly snobby about reading YA (i was one of you - get over it) this does not read like what you are probably thinking of when you think of YA lit. it never has. it is one of the most well-conceived, well-researched set of books; heavy on both the practical survivalist/scientific detail and the action sequences, and it never sacrifices the human elements. yes, sometimes alex seems a little too good to be true, yes sometimes it seems awfully convenient to have an electrical engineer, a brilliant military strategist, and darla - the handiest girl to ever have around in a post-apocalyptic situation all at the ready, but it never seems forced. survival of the fittest and all.

i love everything about this book.

the characters:

alex is great in this book. although he is young, he has already proven himself to others as a level-headed, capable, and compassionate person. he is hard-working and intelligent, and is willing to listen to people's advice. even in his own internal monologues, he admits when he doesn't know something, and defers to the expertise of others. in this book, the focus is on rebuilding; creating a homestead. there are still dangers (SO many dangers), but the primary concerns are the necessary measures that must be taken to establish a home base, and creating a sustainable future for the survivors. most of which falls on alex's shoulders.

alex's mother is somewhat of a disappointment in this book, but her decisions make sense given her situation. still - grrrr.

ben. love ben.

darla. well, darla.

she is just one of the best characters ever, anywhere.

If there was one thing I was certain of with Darla and a technical problem, it was that she wasn't bringing me just the problem. She would have a solution in mind, and it would be something that required my help, or she would have already done it.

that's all that needs to be said. that, and that her "big" scene at the end made me cheer like a sports fan. thanks for that.

the story:

plenty of action in this one, despite what i said above about all the homesteading. there are so many harrowing scenes. particularly the scene just after my bellow of oh my god mike mullin, WHAT DID YOU JUST DO????? the part that happened after the awful awful part made me the most worried for the characters and the freaking coldest i have ever felt reading a book. and i have read Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.

the setting:

well, you know how i feel about the post-apoc. especially the post-apoc that takes place in a recognizable location and one that could actually happen. it is chilling and horrifying and this is the kind of book it might be really nice to have after an event like a supervolcano. i will never be a darla, but if i take notes from this book, there is a chance i will not starve to death. notes, and some luck. there is a lot of luck in this book, but there is just as much bad luck as good luck, and his storytelling style is seamless and never feels like he's throwing a deus ex machina lifeline to his characters.

i have a couple of quibbles. i don't necessarily buy the idea that the eminently practical darla would have made the decision/sacrifice she did in stockton for the sake of some romantic idea. it is really nice to see that she does have that side to her, but as someone who has always been ready to make the hard choices for the sake of survival, it seems uncharacteristically shortsighted.

(view spoiler)[the other quibble is that the people in this book, in alex's ever-growing community, seem too good. what, every one of the thousands of people are pulling their own weight without any petty arguments brought on by exhaustion and the frustration of their situation? they are all just accepting this teenage leader and no one is trying to get fresh with the ladies or sleep an extra hour? i have seen what happens on the subway at rush hour, and it has led me to believe that most people are inherently selfish and poorly behaved. and that is in a situation where the stakes are extremely low. there's gonna be another train in 4 minutes. and i know how cynical this is, and outside the scope of the book, but it seems unrealistic that this new community would operate as such a utopian way without any friction. yes, i know, there was that pesky hanging, but before that, everyone was just cheerfully and equitably working together as a well-oiled machine. which, when your survival depends upon it, makes sense, but you know there's gotta be some bad apples in there, some opportunists. it is kind of addressed by this statement: Even after the apocalypse, the vast majority of people were generous and kind. The few who weren't, however - like the flensers - were exceptionally dangerous despite their relatively small numbers, and mike mullin is entitled to his rosy worldview, and i love him for it, but he should come hang out on my commute sometime. or read the newspaper. (hide spoiler)]

and that one is only a quibble because of how many things mullin does take into consideration - how many details he includes and possible obstacles he addresses, only some of which had occurred to me while reading.

oh, wait - third quibble: (view spoiler)[WHY DO WE NEVER LEARN WHAT HAPPENED TO EMILY?? i mean, we can assume, for sure, but she was mentioned enough that some closure might have been nice. (hide spoiler)]

but quibble quibble who cares?

this book is worth a million stars, and while i am sad to see the story end, and i will miss those characters, it is a satisfying ending, and i am eagerly waiting to see what mr mike mullin will write next....more

…I realize that even though West Glover is not a very big place, there's an enormous amount of activity going on around me pretty much all the time. T…I realize that even though West Glover is not a very big place, there's an enormous amount of activity going on around me pretty much all the time. There's Little League games, literary terrorists, crazy families, cancer patients… and that's just at my house. The thought makes me laugh out loud.

this is a cute MG book about booknerds. i don't read a lot of MG, but i will when there are booknerds involved, like Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library. in that book, the kids are trying to solve a mystery/several mysteries using literature and library skills. in this book, it is the kids themselves creating the mystery using social media, the law of supply and demand, and a love of harper lee.

i never thought i would ever read a book in which "shrinkage" (that's bookstore-shrinkage, not the other kind) would be a factor in plotting literary terrorism. for those of you who have never been in the trenches:

"Shelving books incorrectly is as good as stealing them. It's almost worse. Our computers will show that we have a title in stock, but nobody will be able to find it. Not only that, it's very difficult to convince our corporate headquarters to send us a book if our computer insists that it's somewhere in the store." He lowers his voice. "Shelving badly leads to shrinkage."

"Shrinkage?" I say.

"Loss of profit due to loss of product," he explains. "Shrinkage is very, very bad."

and it's true. now, a superior bookseller develops a robot-sense where they can just glance at their shelves and instantly see what doesn't belong, what has been left by a customer, what has been hidden, what has been misshelved, but these kids hear "shrinkage," and ideas begin to grow in their minds.

you see, we have three fourteen year old kids: lucy, elena, and michael who about to enter high school, and who are passionate about reading. frustrated that not enough students are excited by their school's summer reading list, particularly lucy's beloved To Kill a Mockingbird, they decide to honor both the book and the memory of their favorite, recently-passed teacher, by hiding all copies of the book in bookstores and libraries, leaving fliers in their place, and starting a website, twitter account, etc, to get the word out that SOMETHING is happening with this book and DONT YOU WANT TO READ IT TO SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT? which plot takes off like wildfire, in part due to wil wheaton, and in part because this takes place in connecticut, and preventing someone in connecticut from having something they want is one of the most serious crimes in the state, after "using the wrong fork for salad" and "neglecting to buy your daughter a pony."

and of course, the plot begins to spread well beyond connecticut and transcends their wildest imaginings and as in all good MG books, characters will eventually be given an opportunity to make the difficult decision and prove their… ermm character.

it is a cute little story about the power of literature (and social media) with winning characters that has a little romance and some more serious themes like illness and death. this is a perfect stepping-stone book for young readers who will become john green fans when they are a little older - it isn't as dark as his books, but it has those smart, articulate kids that make his books so rewarding to young booknerds. (and old booknerds like me)

it also touches on the nobility of the book trade, including the joys and perils of readers' advisory. when a nine-year-old comes into elena's uncle mort's bookstore looking for dog books, they all rally together to give her a stack of appropriate titles, and after she leaves, elena realizes they haven't given her a copy of tkam

"We forgot to give Ginny one of these."

"That's not a dog book," says Michael.

"There's a dog in it," says Elena.

"A dead dog with rabies doesn't count."

Elena shrugs. "A sale is a sale."

"That little girl does not want a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird," Mort tells us.

"It's the books that have power,…but a good bookstore will influence what a person chooses to read."

I think for a moment. "Does it have to be a good bookstore?" I ask

More considers the question. "Probably not," he finally admits.

and that's the truth of it - many people don't know what they are looking for, and a good bookseller or librarian is instrumental in that process - providing the right book to the right reader, not "to make a sale," but to build a relationship with a reader in order to foster their love of reading and help them understand what they enjoy in order to make more successful reading choices; to influence them in their selections, selflessly. readers' advisory rocks.

Saying what you mean is hard enough, Lucy. Then you go and add seven or twelve or fourteen extra syllables for no good reason. Pretty soon, we're back to the Tower of Babel."

as much as i love language and the surprisingly poetic and luminous words that exist in the world, i also love efficiency and simplicity and recognizing the time and place for showcasing those "fancy" words. high-five for sliding that sentence in there, sir!

this book has an average rating of 4.34 with 2,119 ratings. that's really high.

and it's terrible.

and i'm not one of these assholes that likes to trasthis book has an average rating of 4.34 with 2,119 ratings. that's really high.

and it's terrible.

and i'm not one of these assholes that likes to trash something that other people like. usually i try to figure out who would like it, even if i didn't myself, because i'm just one reader yadda yadda ranganathan, but in this case, the only people i can see actually enjoying it are 13-year-old girls who are all starry-eyed over some boy. and that's fine - nothing wrong with little girls reading and writing love poetry in their diaries. but that's exactly where it should stay.

i am notorious for not knowing what happens in the Great Wide World. and after reading this book and being utterly baffled as to why anyone would publish it, let alone give it such high star-ratings, i had to find out: "is this chick on glee or something??" "is she some rock star's kid??" "is this a little mattie situation where people tell him he's good because he's, you know, terminal?" why does she have a book that people are so delusional about? so i poked around the internet and apparently this chick got famous through tumblr?? and pinterest?? and all those sites you young'uns use these days??

and i looked at her artwork, and it's pretty good

although i feel like mark ryden should be writing her a letter, because ahem

and

so, the artwork is fine, if a kind of watered-down and less delightfully d(m)ark ryden. but it's not good enough to brainwash people in that "oh, james franco, you want to write books now?? you want to have a cooking show?? you want to fly a commercial airline?? go ahead, superfine one, we will stand by you" way. it's not good enough to make me accept that this is a good poem:

Heart on the Line

Love is good, it is never bad - but it will drive you mad!

When it is given to you, in dribs and drabs.

and it's all like that - barfy-sweet in the happy ones, emo-woe in the sad ones. and rhyming! it made me want to tear my hair out. i bought this book because of the high ratings on goodreads, and because it is an attractively-designed book, and i flipped through and saw it had some decent art, but it just really made me wince. maybe someone else can tell me what the appeal is??

Soul Mates

I don't know how you are so familiar to me - or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before - in another time, a different place - some other existence.

The Girl He Loves

There was a man who I once knew, for me there was no other. The closer to loving me he grew, the more he would grow further.

I tried to love him as a friend, then to love him as his lover; but he never loved me in the end - his heart was for another.

am i too cynical?? it this sweetie-pie greeting card stuff what people want in their poetry? because i know shit from poundcake about poetry, really, but to me, this is a love poem:

from The Bridge: Southern CrossBY HART CRANE

I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South,No wraith, but utterly—as still more aloneThe Southern Cross takes nightAnd lifts her girdles from her, one by one—High, cool, wide from the slowly smoldering fireOf lower heavens,— vaporous scars!

Eve! Magdalene! or Mary, you?

Whatever call—falls vainly on the wave.O simian Venus, homeless Eve,Unwedded, stumbling gardenless to grieveWindswept guitars on lonely decks forever;Finally to answer all within one grave!

And this long wake of phosphor, iridescentFurrow of all our travel—trailed derision!Eyes crumble at its kiss. Its long-drawn spellIncites a yell. Slid on that backward visionThe mind is churned to spittle, whispering hell.

I wanted you . . . The embers of the CrossClimbed by aslant and huddling aromatically.It is blood to remember; it is fireTo stammer back . . . It isGod—your namelessness. And the wash—

All night the water combed you with blackInsolence. You crept out simmering, accomplished.Water rattled that stinging coil, yourRehearsed hair—docile, alas, from many arms.Yes, Eve—wraith of my unloved seed!

The Cross, a phantom, buckled—dropped below the dawn.Light drowned the lithic trillions of your spawn.

and i know - it is a problematic example for a number of reasons, but that is a poem that gets my romantic juices flowing. i have never been into frosting romance. i like my romance to be all red wine and very rare meat. but even frosting should have more substance than these poems.